Posted on 11/25/2005 4:58:35 PM PST by Coleus
Manhattan prep school officials and parents aren't the only ones who hope the NYPD tracks down and arrests a defrocked priest accused of molesting a student. His son wants him behind bars, too.
"I'd love to see him get caught," Aaron Jacques, 25, the youngest child of school fund-raiser Bruce Jacques, told the Daily News yesterday. "If he really did what they say he did, that would make my day."
Bruce Jacques, 57, is on the run after a male student at the Robert Louis Stevenson School on W. 74th St. claimed the ex-priest sexually assaulted by him in Central Park on Oct. 20.
After the allegation was lodged, school officials discovered Jacques had a sordid past: the Episcopal Church had booted him from the priesthood for allegedly propositioning a 13-year-old boy in 1995.
At the time, Jacques was rector of St. John's Episcopal Church in New Milford, Conn., a married father of two boys.
His son, Aaron, said the scandal tore the family apart. He wasn't speaking to his father by the time his dad walked out of the house in 2002, leaving behind only a note to feed the dog.
"We're just getting over it, but we're all better off without him," said Aaron, who still lives in New Milford. "I couldn't care less about the guy."
His father always denied the allegation - that he'd offered the boy oral sex as a confirmation present - and his family bought his story.
"We believed in him," his son said. "But I don't know now. Hearing this? It's crazy. Now I don't know."
Parishioners at St. John's were also sickened by the new revelations.
"I knew he was bad news - but not that bad," church member Lise Smith said. "This is like reopening a wound.
Gail Kenney-Mulligan, the current rector, wasn't surprised.
"I saw that coming because there had been accusations even before he was here - and you don't get cured of that," she said.
Another parishioner, Kathy Olson, 81, said she backed Jacques when the first scandal erupted a decade ago, but her faith in his innocence has been shaken.
"Now I wonder, maybe my head was in the sand," she said.
Yes it goes across all lines and should be rooted out.
What, even Islam? The Religion of Peace?
You are right. This guy was protected for years until he went totally looney. You can bet there were many episodes covered up by his gay superiors. The other denominations are no different. The greater the scandal, the greater the desire to cover it up and attack anyone who mentions it.
It's not just a religious vocation issue. Various helping professions do the same thing. Same MO. Same cover-up.
Unbelievable.
Yipes! Boys used to get fountain pens for Bar Mitzvah...
But still some sections of the community try to present this as a Catholic issue.
If only Episcopalians would let their priests marry!
Oh, wait a minute...
And apparently no worse (or better) in any particular one. That being said, the hierarchical churches whose higher-ups shuck and shuffle and hem and haw over the problem are rightly seen as more culpable than one-off evangelical churches because they have a structure that can deal with the problem and kick out the b@st@rds, but refuse to use it.
"It's not just Catholics, this problem is permeating all religions. This guy is Protestant, married and has a family. Celibacy is not the issue."
Thanks for saying this. It needs to be said over and over.
Yes , Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes a thousand times yes your are so right. Evil knows no boundaries!
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